


Flickers

by pigeon_hold



Category: Monsterhearts (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Anxiety, Broken Bones, F/F, Fluff and Angst, It's Almost All a Dream, M/M, Monster characters, Trauma, Trauma Informed Nightmares, Trevor is Good Actually, Vague Reference of a Noose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeon_hold/pseuds/pigeon_hold
Summary: Nothing more powerful than giving a shit.
Relationships: The Fae/Ricardo, The Infernal/The Ghoul
Kudos: 2





	Flickers

It was brisk but beautiful; the orange-yellow-reds of the treetops created a halo of sunlight on the garden. The perimeter of their shadows swung in the breeze, dipping in and out of the small haven, and sprinkling a healthy dose of color across the lawn.

  
Poe was in the garden.

  
That was not unusual.

  
Poe was not alone in the garden. Though that was not exactly the most unusual happenstance as of recent.

  
She was sat, pressed into her favorite spot, a small apple tree she had watched grow into something fruitful. Georgie had taken up the spot next to her, stretching out on a bleacher pad as she read through some book Poe hadn’t quite looked at long enough to get the title of.

  
Anders and Ricardo had taken spots near the opening, opting to look at the gaggle of snails that littered the gate and whispering quietly among themselves.

  
Maybe it was the sun, maybe the breeze; but something in that moment made her desperately to freeze time and hang it on her wall. She didn’t want to forget this. The line of Georgie’s lashes against her cheek, the hair that brushed over her shoulder, god and when she looked at her, the way the sun lit up her eyes.

  
Yes, she may have died, but Poe didn’t believe there was any part of the world more alive than here, sat in the garden, in the highlights of her eyes.

  
She must have been staring, Georgie’s brow rose.

  
“What?” And the world was back, the birds singing, bugs chirping.

  
“Ah, Sorry, Just… Been thinking.”

  
“Is that what all that noise was?” Poe met her question with a look of her own, “You literally have sighed like twice a minute for the past twenty minutes, I was getting worried you were going to pass out.”

  
And she laughed, and she laughed. It wasn’t funny, but it felt right.

  
“Sorry, I just,” She looked over the small enclosure, watching as Ricardo grinned at Anders, who had carefully picked up the tiniest empty snail shell and looked rather ecstatic about it, “I think… I think this is the happiest I’ve been in a really long time.”

  
Georgie smiled and leaned forward, landing a sweet kiss right above Poe’s brow.

  
“Hope you enjoyed your time with the sluttiest sapphic on campus.”

  
Poe ripped her head round, ready to tell Janice to fuck off out of her garden.

  
But they weren’t in the garden. This was Anders room. Janice was between her and the door. She spun and Anders and Georgie were nowhere to be seen. They were just in the garden. Hadn’t they been?

  
“I know you think your hick thing makes you cute, but it really just makes you disposable.”

  
Poe clenched her jaw, squeezed her fist, pushed it down.

  
“That makes so fucking sense Janice, you just,” And Janice was grinning, well beyond her usual smirk. Twin pairs of arms wrapped around Poe, across her shoulder, her neck, her chest, her stomach. Caught.

  
“Poor hick, just disposable.” Anders voice pressed against the crook of her neck, slithering across her skin. The arms wrapped around her shoulder and stomach suddenly flexed and froze. “How is it someone so unremarkable has so much chatter about them? It’d be so much more peaceful without you here.”

  
“You couldn’t even bring me back right; I’m supposed to keep you around after you fucked me over?” Georgie whispered in her ear, the arms around her neck and chest tightening. “If our roles had been reversed? I would’ve buried you six feet myself, made sure you stayed in the dirt.”

  
When she dared to look, the two wore the same creepy smile Janice presented in front of her, though their eyes flashed bizarre hues. She tried to pry their hands away but their grip turned into a vice, forcing her still. More hands- god were they hands? Fleshy masses of something she couldn’t see pulled her head to face Janice.

  
She had thought it was Mona, Penny, Meghan hidden in the shadows. She really wished it was them, she’d take any of the goons over who stepped forward.

  
“I don’t have to do the work, I have people for that.”

  
Her parents loomed over Janice’s shoulders, unsmiling at first before their face contorted into the same wicked grin. Poe fought to swallow the bile threatening to rise in her throat.

  
“No kidding.” She managed to whisper. They looked better, healthier, and she felt some microbe of relief.

  
Until He stepped out.

  
Honestly, Janice and He would probably have gotten on like a spark and flame. Blonde hair falling perfectly on His square head, the blue-green of His eyes flashing.

  
“Come on P.” And it was His hands holding her, everywhere, too much. Whatever comfort came from it being Anders and Georgie was dashed against the rocks.

  
She could hear it. The river, how many times had she walked over this bridge? Looked over the edge and wondered?

  
His eyes were too close, everything was too close, the river was so close in her ears.

  
She turned and jumped onto the railing, staring down as the water rushed beneath her, lit only by the moon and stars above.

  
“Going for a swim P?” Had He said that, or was that Janice’s voice? God, Anders? She didn’t look, she didn’t need to this time round. She knew His eyes shone bright blue in the darkness, she knew a demon when she saw one.

“Don’t forget your necklace.” Georgie, Lila, that fucking professor, Him.

  
The rope had hardly thudded against her skin before she leapt.

  
She hadn’t known exactly what she was doing the first time, but now… She pulled at the rope and twisted, enough momentum backwards. Step one. Don’t let go. Step 2.

  
The rope snapped taunt, the bones in her hand grinding before snapping completely. She screamed just as she had when her arm pulled free of the socket. Don’t let go.

  
We she looked back up the length of the rope, she could see them.

  
Georgie, Lila, Anders, even Defne, Janice, and her goons; horrified the lot of them. Did they see the river? Did they see her jump? How far down was she now?

  
Her friends moved first, desperately trying to pull at the rope, Georgie’s eyes flashing that same lively hue from the garden.

  
Poe couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t funny. But it felt right.

  
“Sorry.” Was all she could manage before her hand exploded into a new world of pain, the rope she had been holding now a lively snake, happily sinking it’s fangs into her mangled hand.

  
Step 2. Don’t let go.

  
She let go

  
and woke screaming. Her throat burned to high hell, her body ached, and as she writhed on her bed. Her bed. Her campus bed. She tried to gather what- She was in bed, her throat hurt, her hands…

  
When she looked it was evident, her claws had come out, her hands burning with effort to hold them still, the snakes eating their tales on her arms unraveling to bite at her fingers. She was sweating and could feel the barbs trying to rattle in her hair and on her back. Her tongue had split and she could feel it trying to twist around itself.

  
She looked at the clock on her phone. It was late. Still enough time before she had to meet Lila, but late. No messages.

  
She heard it last, the poor trumpet blasting through her wall. She heaved a sob of a laugh. It wasn’t funny.

  
She could still feel Him, His hands.

  
Poe took the mason jar of water from her nightstand and threw it with everything she had against the shared wall with a scream. The trumpet only played louder, matching her for pitch and volume before surpassing her.

  
When the playing died down and the knock on her bathroom door came, she was long gone.

  
Trevor, if anyone had ever bothered to ask, wouldn’t admit to going into Poe’s room ever. Certainly not while she wasn’t in there. But if the glass got cleaned up, the water dried, and the tears in the sheets covered up; well, Poe hadn’t told Janice, hadn’t confronted him. So, he’d never say.

  
Yeah, some people complained about the noise, they said his playing was shit. That was fine. It was true. He was bad, he was loud. But no one asked why Poe screamed like that. No one knocked on her door and asked for an explanation.

  
He didn’t need to ask; He’d held his friends as they screamed like that. He didn’t need to ask.

  
So he played.

  
Besides,

  
that was really the only way to get good at this stupid thing wasn’t it?


End file.
